Mahmud Hj Yussof, the deputy director of the forestry department, told The Brunei Times over the weekend that the slow progress was partly due to unavoidable circumstances such as inclement weather conditions, and partly due to limited capacity of local private sectors.

Enrichment planting is regionally accepted for the treatment of forest areas which have been logged-over or heavily logged. However, its success is very much dependent on the capability of private sectors, said the deputy director.

To date, 7,300 hectares of logged-over forests have been successfully enriched. Priority areas for enrichment planting are logged-over production forest reserves which cover 200,000 hectares.

According to Mahmud, more efforts will be undertaken to increase the annual achievement, such as fixing the annual target of the project accomplishment for all awarded contractors and offering technical short term training on request basis from interested contractors.

The deputy director also clarified that the department's introduction of the “One Tree Felled, Plant Four” policy is actually based on the assumption that for one tree felled, there should be the planting of four seedlings worth $1 each, which was the actual cost of dipterocarp seedlings.

Mahmud said planting four seedlings to replace one tree felled was actually far below target in terms of the number of future crop per hectare.

The deputy director explained that this was because of the recommended number of trees to be extracted under the present Brunei Felling System is not more than 12 trees per hectare.

Using the "One Tree Felled, Plant Four" concept would mean that the total number of trees planted per hectare comes to only 48, which would be below commercial capacity.

However, based on the current conditions of logged-over forest areas, it might be sound reasonable if the left-over residual trees are considered after logging operations,' stated the deputy director.

The Brunei Selective Felling System adopted will ensure a considerable number of residual stands, or left-over standing commercial trees, are left behind for future cutting cycle.

Mahmud further revealed that due to the complexity of the natural forest, there is a need to increase the stock capacity of the logged-over forest. The enrichment planting has to be done by planting 143 seedlings or saplings per hectare. Thus, every stump in the 10-year-old logged-over forest will be replaced by 12 seedlings.

The directive to restore the logged-over forest came from the Government Secretary, or Setiausaha Kerajaan (SUK), in August 1982 at -a time before ministries were established in Brunei.

It was stated that the Forestry Department, named Conservator of Forest at the time, would bear the responsibility of the restoration of logged-over forest.

At that time, much of the "silviculture" (the agriculture of trees) operation was conducted by improving the standing residual stands or left-over commercial trees.

Enrichment planting intensified in the late 1990s through private sectors funded by loggers and the National Development Plan. Therefore, the first seedlings planted since then will be in the age of 10 to 13 years old today.

These will not be harvested until a minimum of 30 years from the year of initial planting, revealed the deputy director.

Efforts from the department will continue in conducting artificial planting, taking into consideration the nation's need to increase and sustain the local timber supply from the designated natural production forest.